Name: Broad Coalition Urges Court Not to Block California’s Net Neutrality Law
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Broad Coalition Urges Court Not to Block California’s Net Neutrality Law

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Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItAfter the federal government rolled back net neutrality protections for consumers in 2017, California stepped up and passed a bill that does what FCC wouldn’t: bar telecoms from blocking and throttling Internet content and imposing paid prioritization schemes. The law, SB 822, ensures that that all Californians have full access to all Internet content and services—at lower prices.Partnering with the ACLU of Northern California and numerous other public interest advocates, businesses and educators, EFF today urging a federal court to reject the telecom industry’s of SB 822. The industry is claiming that California’s law is preempted by federal law—despite a court ruling that said the FCC can’t impose nationwide preemption of state laws protecting net neutrality.Without legal protections, low-income Californians who rely on mobile devices for internet access and can’t pay for more expensive content are at a real disadvantage. Their ISPs could inhibit full access to the Internet, which is critical for distance learning, maintaining small businesses, and staying connected. Schools and libraries are justifiably concerned that without net neutrality protections, paid prioritization schemes will degrade access to material that students and public need in order to learn. SB 822 addresses that by ensuring that large ISPs do not take advantage of their stranglehold on Californians’ Internet access to slow or otherwise manipulate Internet traffic. The large ISPs also have a vested interest in shaping Internet use to favor their own subsidiaries and business partners, at the expense of diverse voices and competition. Absent meaningful competition, ISPs have every incentive to leverage their last-mile monopolies to customers’ homes and bypass competition for a range of online services. That would mean less choice, lower quality, and higher prices for Internet users—and new barriers to entry for innovators. SB 822 aims to keep the playing field level for everyone.These protections are important all of the time, but doubly so in crises like the ones California now faces: a pandemic, the resulting economic downturn, and a state wildfire emergency. And Internet providers have shown that they are not above using emergencies to exploit their gatekeeper power for financial gain. Just two years ago, when massive fires threatened the lives of rescuers, emergency workers, and residents, the Santa Clara fire department found that it’s “unlimited” data plan was being throttled by Verizon. Internet access on a vehicle the department was using to coordinate its fire response slowed to a crawl. When contacted, the company told firefighters that they needed to pay more for a better plan.Without SB 822, Californians – and not just first responders – could find themselves in the same situation as the Santa Clara Fire Department: unable, thanks to throttling or other restrictions, to access information they need or connect with others. We hope the court recognizes how important SB 822 is and why the telecom lobby shouldn’t be allowed to block its enforcement.Share ItRight now, Americans live in a country where the companies that control our access to the internet face little-to-no oversight. In most states, these companies can throttle your service—or that of, say, fighting the largest wildfire in state history. They can block a service they don’t...The California Senate Energy, Utilities, and Communications Committee will soon be the first to consider new and terrible amendments to Assemblymember Quirk-Silva’s A.B. 2749—which is backed by AT&amp;T and other telecommunications interests. The legislation would prohibit the state from implementing affordable broadband rules for broadband companies receiving state subsidies as...There is a lot to appreciate in the recently published “Notice of Funding Opportunity” (NOFO) by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA). It is arguably the first federal government proposal that seeks to promote infrastructure policies focused on the future, rather than the usual subsidizing “good enough...When the massive, bipartisan infrastructure package passed Congress, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was tasked with ensuring equal access to broadband access services. That provision is called “Digital Discrimination” and it states, for the first time in federal law, that specifically broadband access cannot be built along the lines of...Six months have passed since the Biden Administration signed an Executive Order to restore Net Neutrality at the FCC. And three months have passed since the President nominated net neutrality champion Gigi Sohn, a member of the EFF board, to the FCC (Sohn will leave the EFF board if she...The Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of California over the large national internet service providers (ISPs), paving the way for California’s gold standard state net neutrality law to go forward. Throughout the long battle on net neutrality, from Ajit Pai’s repeal of federal net neutrality protections to state efforts to...Oakland residents shared the stories of their personal experience; a of advocates, civil society organizations, and local internet service providers (ISPs) lifted their voices; and now the Oakland City Council has unanimously passed Oakland’s Communications Service Provider Choice . The newly minted law frees Oakland renters...To celebrate 30 years of defending online freedom, EFF held a candid live discussion with net neutrality pioneer and EFF board member Gigi Sohn, who served as Counselor to the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and co-founder of leading advocacy organization Public Knowledge.Partnering with the ACLU and numerous other public interest advocates, businesses and educators, EFF has filed an urging the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a district court’s decision not to block enforcement of SB 822, a law that ensures that Californians have fair access to...When it launched HBO Max, AT&amp;T also announced that usage of the service would not count against the data caps of its customers, a practice known as “zero-rating.” This means that people on limited data plans could watch as much HBO Max content as they wished without incurring overage fees...Share It

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItAfter the federal government rolled back net neutrality protections for consumers in 2017, California stepped up and passed a bill that does what FCC wouldn’t: bar telecoms from blocking and throttling Internet content and imposing paid prioritization schemes. The law, SB 822, ensures that that all Californians have full access to all Internet content and services—at lower prices.Partnering with the ACLU of Northern California and numerous other public interest advocates, businesses and educators, EFF today urging...

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Broad Coalition Urges Court Not to Block California’s Net Neutrality Law

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